Cowboys Stun Bills on Field Goal at :00

Oct 09, 05:00 AM

Current Headlines: By Skip Wood

ORCHARD PARK. N.Y. -- Not since 1994 had the powers at Monday Night Football deemed the Buffalo Bills worthy of such a prime-time slot at home, and both the fans and the players at Ralph Wilson Stadium were determined to put on a worthy show.

No matter that the high-flying Dallas Cowboys came in with the league's top offense and the lowly Bills with the league's worst defense.

Put on a show the Bills did -- and what a show it was.

They intercepted Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo five times -- two of them returned for touchdowns. Terrence McGee returned a kickoff 103 yards for another score, and the Bills thought they had held off the previously unbeaten Cowboys to pull off the biggest upset of the NFL season.

But the Cowboys weren't through. After recovering an onside kick, they got the ball into field goal territory and Nick Folk kicked a 53-yard game-winning field goal. But the Bills had called a timeout.

Folk tried again, and made it again at the final gun to give the Cowboys a heart-stopping 25-24 victory.

For 59 minutes, though, this was the Bills' night. You name it, they did it.

There was the successful fake punt on the Bills' first possession. There was the interception returned for a touchdown and a 7-0 Buffalo lead shortly thereafter. There was the amazing leap, tip and grab in the end zone of a Romo pass by Bills defensive end Chris Kelsay late in the first half that put Dallas down by 10 and made it difficult to hear in an already reverberating stadium.

There were the four first-half interceptions of Romo -- the ninth time one team has robbed another so many times in an initial two quarters.

Yet through all that, the Bills led 17-10 at halftime. And then more of the same, including McGee's kickoff return that put the Bills up 24-13 and added a magical moment that eventually ended in heartbreak for upstate New York. (c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.